I’ve had a Nature’s Rest Vista mattress for I’m guessing about 18 years. I believe it is all latex. It is very thick and very heavy. Iwjhen I got it they told me it would last for 30 years. I remember liking it for a long time. It seems that if I slept by myself I liked it better and sleeping with someone I would feel like I was being rolled towards the other person. After moving, it seemed that the mattress got significantly more uncomfortable. During this time I also have injured my lower back and sacroiliac. Now if I sleep or lay lay in bed for more than about 7 hours I wake up in quite a bit of pain. I also cannot sleep on my left side or I will wake up with a migraine. The mattress used to seem somewhat soft and now it just seems kind of hard, not firm.
My mom was sick and I stayed with her for about a month and was sleeping on a somewhat older innerspring Sealy Posturpedic and could not believe how much better I felt when I woke up. I could even sleep on my left side without any problem. After moving back to my house, I decided that I need a new mattress quickly. I’m just trying to figure out if the problems with my latex mattress are just because of it’s age or if it has anything to do with my newer needs from a mattress. In some ways I kind of want a somewhat firm innerspring mattress, but just because I slept on one for a month and I felt better. I think I used to like a softer mattress but now I am more comfortable on something firm, but that still has a little feeling of softness.
I also don’t remember my latex mattress sleeping hot in the beginning, but that seemed to change. I am now wondering if it is because of the waterproof mattress cover that is on it now. The problem is that I have cats now and don’t want to ruin a mattress if one has an accident but I also can’t stand to be so hot when I sleep.
I had pretty much convinced myself that I didn’t want another latex mattress until I started reading this forum. Then I tried to remember how much I liked it before. Assuming it’s just old (which it is), the worst parts besides uncomfortableness were rolling towards another person in the bed, and sleeping hot. I also wish I knew exactly what materials are in my current mattress.
Any thoughts on all this? I hope it’s not too random.
I don’t know the specifics of your mattress but what you are describing could be coming from the softening or breakdown of materials in your mattress (particularly in the upper layers) or from changes in your body and your specific needs and preferences (which change with time and circumstances).
Your mattress may not be all latex and its quite possible that there is polyfoam in your mattress as well which could be breaking down (you can check the law tag to see the materials in your mattress). Softer latex also won’t last as long as firmer latex.
Either way … it appears that the mattress is no longer a good match for you in terms of PPP.
The membrane types of waterproof covers are not as breathable as other types of covers and they certainly sleep warmer for some people because of this. There is more about the different types of mattress protectors in post #89 here and more about all the factors that can affect sleeping temperature in post #2 here. It’s often a combination of several factors that leads to a mattress sleeping warmer.
Just in case you haven’t read it yet … the first place to start when you are looking for a new mattress is the tutorial post here which has all the basic information, steps, and guidelines you will need to make the best possible choices … and avoid the worst ones.
I found my mattress tag and it is completely blank as far as materials go, and it is dated May 1998, so I was pretty close on its age. The larger tag on the mattress that says it’s a Vista model from Nature’s Rest says that is carries the Latex International seal of design and manufacturing excellence. Does that mean anything?
I also realized that my mattress is upside down, so I flipped it over thinking that if it’s dunlop or a one sided mattress, I may be sleeping on the hard side. We’ll see if that makes a temporary difference that will by me some time while I’m doing research. I’m also taking the waterproof cover off to see if that makes a difference. Would one side versus the other make a temperature difference?
Latex International makes Talalay latex so that would indicate that either some or all of the mattress was blended Talalay latex (which is what they made at the time) but I don’t know the specifics or how much latex was in the mattress.
That would depend on the construction on each side. If the mattress was two sided and the same on both sides then it wouldn’t make a difference but if the mattress was one sided then the bottom side would be much firmer and probably quite uncomfortable but if you did decide to sleep on the bottom then any difference in temperature would depend on the specific materials on the bottom of the mattress.